A review by inspiralling
The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis

adventurous emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 The Grimoire Grammar School Parent-Teacher Association, by Caitlin Rozakis. Read for the Cozy SFF square of the r/fantasy Bingo challenge. Hard mode: an author you haven't read before? Check! (I previously had John Wiswell's Someone You Can Build a Nest In, Nebula winner and Hugo nominee, but Rozakis is replacing Wiswell for straight-up being better.)

An attack by a stranger on a hiking path leaves Viv and Daniel's five-year-old with life-altering injuries and forces them to put her into a very exclusive, very expensive school for children with particular educational needs. Which wouldn't sound very cosy fantasy, except that the injury was a werewolf bite, little Aria is now switching between cute rambunctious munchkin to cute rambunctious puppy and the special school is for the tots and tykes of wizards, cryptids and faeries. Abruptly dropped into this supernatural milieu, Viv struggles to help Aria fit in with her new classmates, which naturally means Viv has to fit in with the queen bees and wine moms of the PTA. Her efforts are hampered by some extremely high-stakes testing and a prophecy about an unwanted newcomer which sounds suspiciously like it might be about their kid.

There's a lot to enjoy in the quirky Hogwarts-esque magical world - and it does know it's Hogwarts-esque, there are a lot of shout-outs -  and the sprawling cast of similarly quirky side characters. However, things do get grimmer than most cosy fantasy in the second act, or perhaps it's just has more of an impact for being more grounded grimness - financial pressure, kid getting bullied, marital breakdown. That's why I've labelled it as tense rather than lighthearted! As a result, though, it's more satisfying when Viv is able to pull it together. (She pulls it together. That's not a spoiler. It says cozy fantasy right there on the book.) One thing that is a spoiler, though:

I do like when prophecies turn out to be cynical bullshit from manipulators, and I really haven't seen it happen enough.